Tag: start

To be liked

FabrizioLeave a comment

Everyone wants to be liked. But there is a different between striving to be liked in the moment and striving to be liked in the end.

To be liked in the moment means that you are betting on your capacity to escape immediate evaluation. It’s about being erratic, leveraging every situation, and since people talk, caring about short-term benefit.

To be liked in the end means that you are betting on the capacity of people to judge by themselves. It’s about consistency, authenticity, and long term.

So, the choice is not really between wanting to be liked and not wanting to be liked.

It’s a choice between now and forever.

Safety in crisis

FabrizioLeave a comment

Three things to do in order to establish emotional and professional safety in a moment of crisis at work.

  1. Listen without the intention to say something, particularly when you are hearing you have done something people did not like.
  2. Prepare what you have to say and keep it consistent. Do not improvise, do not go off track, do not share the thought of the moment.
  3. Share your difficulties as they emerge, and be open in asking for help and praising the help received.

Bystanders

FabrizioLeave a comment

We can’t control how others will react to us, but we can control how we behave in their presence. What and how we say and share things, how we respond to their requests, what we do when they tell something unexpected, how we are present and listen.

We over-stress about their reaction and pay little to no attention to how we can influence that. We play the part of the bystander when we actually are (one of) the main character(s).

It’s no guarantee that the other person’s will do what we hope for. But we will at least feel infinitely better.

In the background

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you constantly doubt what you do, people will start doubting you as well.

If you play down compliments all the time, people will stop complimenting you.

If you point at your flaws and the skills you lack, people will turn their heads in that direction as well.

The fact is, if you do all that to stay in the background, modesty is not a good strategy.

Try empowering others instead.

Kill your idol

FabrizioLeave a comment

Idols are idols only from afar, because when you keep the distance, you only see the silhouette.

And I wonder what would happen if we would direct the respect we reserve for idols to people that are close and that we see fully instead.

Idols are idols and they always disappoint.

That’s no reason to be disappointed at life as a whole and stop doing what you are here to do.